Gamer Girl: The Rest of the Tale
by PaladinCarvin
Summary: My first submission. An expanded theory of what happened after the end of the story. Details on all the characters. Rated T: Mild Language, Adult Themes without detail; Homosexuality, Pregnancy, Drugs, Jail. Please help me catch editing mistakes.
1. Prize Money

(Dear reader: this is written in almost a... false non-fiction way. At the very least it isn't going to be first person. But, can't tell everyone's tales from Maddie's point of view, can we? I haven't a real clue of how enjoyable this will be for anyone else, but I don't quite wish to leave the town of Farmingdale just yet.)

Maddie won the regional contest. It was such an exciting moment she had forgotten about the newspaper reporter that was there. Frankly, she had talked to so many people that day she couldn't remember who she had spoken to. The article had turned out to be rather interesting. While not many of the people who read the newspaper on pulp cared, The Boston Herald's online article gathered a lot of attention. It wasn't long before the article gain notoriety on sites like Digg, FAILBlog's "Win!" page, Kotaku, and Penny Arcade. The follow up article written by a member of Kotaku's staff was just as interesting: what she did with her prize.

She'd planned for so long to spend it on tuition at her old school... but now she didn't need to. Maggie started thinking of new ways she was going to use the money. After three days she had decided on everything.

First thing first: making good with Grandma. She gave one thousand of her ten thousand dollar prize for her to restore her unicorn collection. Both Maddie and Grandma knew that the 'Babies' she lost probably cost more than that, but that didn't matter to Grandma. She was incredibly touched by the action. She used it to buy more unicorns as expected, though this time she avoided glass and ceramics in favor of metal, wood and plastic. More importantly was how Grandma changed. She looked at Maddie as an adult for her decision to give so much of her prize. This meant that she was much more inclined to respect Maggie's decisions; less likely to lecture, willing to view things from her perspective and even got a bit encouraging. She even tried to read Maggie's manga... she didn't understand it (other than knowing the main girl looked a lot like Maggie), but she couldn't help liking Sir Leo (who seemed like a romance novel hero she'd read about). Life at home was, of course, much better. Maggie even managed to convince Grandma to let her put up some little plastic stars on her ceiling.

After that was a car. Nine thousand would go a long way... but she had other plans. All in all, she spent just under five thousand dollars. She found a used but well taken care of Honda Civic from the nineties. It was heavily customized in ways that couldn't easily be returned to normal; lots of little lights, big speakers, flame detailing. The owner had moved on to a newer Civic, but was having a hard time finding a buyer because he'd made it a bit too... unique. Maggie adored it and all of its quirks. And she still had about four thousand left!

Now it was time to give back to her new friends. Right off the bat she gave every person who contributed she gave one hundred dollars, including **insert teacher**. With the money left she decided to have some lapel pins made: they were of Gamer Girl, both 'real world' and 'virtual world' as well as Sir Leo. She designed them to be chibi, and the results were very cute. Her new friends from the manga club were ecstatic with the results. There was a tiny problem: while everyone loved the pins, not everyone was comfortable with getting prize money. **insert teacher** invested her prize money into the manga club, getting some new titles for the club library and getting art supplies so that, when Maggie gave her lessons, new members had something to use. But for those like Chad and other members who were a little more 'well off', they didn't feel right taking it. So, with all the returned money, as well as the little bit left over, she donated it to Child's Play, buying books, comics and games for children at Boston's children's hospital.

It was a month later that she took a train to Washington, D.C. to take part in the national contest. She got third place among the twenty-one contestants. That meant no further prize money, but it did mean the more important prize was hers: being published! An odd thing happened though. It seemed 4chan got a look at the digital copy released on Shojo Beat!'s website and she had a meme born from one of her panels. Gamer Girl, in her hoodie in the real world, with flames dancing on her hand, became an advice meme called 'Revenge Girl'. The most famous version had "I think I like you better" on top, and on the bottom "on fire", all in impact.

She decided to get stuff up on DeviantArt, start a twitter as well as a tumblr. Things were going pretty well in her dreams of becoming a professional Manga artist. But, there is more than life than career aspirations.


	2. Gonna Hate

The Haters... did not fare well against the onslaught of punishment. Billy, Chelsea and Lucy gave their best lies to Principal Miller. But when Chad told what he knew, there wasn't much choice to investigate. When word spread of how Chad stood up against Billy again, people who'd seen Lucy and Chelsea mess up Maddie's work spoke up honestly. The inquisitive authority figure decided to take each Hater by themselves and ask what happened.

It was a classic prisoner's dilemma. They were all asked again who did what. Only Chelsea held to the original lies, stating they were completely innocent. She thought the others would too, but the problem was, Lucy and Billy had much more to lose. Billy told about how he had no idea the two were going to deface the manga, and was 'very upset' at them. Of course, Billy was never too bright, and revealed he knew things that he could only have learned by helping coordinate. Lucy claimed she didn't want to go along with it, but was a victim of peer pressure and threats. Lucy's lies seemed to fall in the uncanny valley- they seemed very genuine, but not quite... which made them much more bothersome than bad lies. Audibly crying but being unable to even get her eyes to water didn't help.

The punishment was delivered. All three were suspended in-school for 20 school days. Lucy and Billy were permanently banned from participating in sports for the remainder of their time at Hannah Dustin. In the weeks it took before they were back, the jocks and in-crowd had already built a new court. It wasn't as strong, but they were just as cruel when pressed.

Chelsea, betrayed far more than the other two, decided it was time to go to a private school. The only one in the area was a Christian Academy. For some time it worked well. She could fake what she needed to be approved by many of the students, could hide her arrogance in her actions that managed to attract people, and her attractiveness and charm won over her teachers. There was a very young teacher she found useful to have under her thumb, a Mr. Travis Wylan. Handsome, but single and lonely, he didn't stand a chance. But, what started as a relationship of Chelsea using the teacher, who was only four years older, became something that changed her. Chelsea genuinely fell for the teacher. At one point admitting to her original purpose, but was easily forgiven. Of course, the big trouble came when she accidentally got pregnant. Her parents tried to pressure her into getting rid of it; which wasn't something she had any moral qualms about, but she didn't want to. She was finally considering something besides herself. She ended up all but rejected from most of her elite family. As for Mr. Wylan, we was unceremoniously fired; denied forgiveness. By the time this happened though, there was an opening at Hannah Dustin and as an excellent teacher was hired. While they got engaged about that time, she continued to college, getting a degree in fashion design.

Lucy tried her best to fight the punishment. And then she tried to remain part of the popular crowd... but she'd been too humiliated. If Chelsea had stayed there, she'd have been fine, maybe even could have worked her way back up. But she wasn't. And she couldn't. Billy had his own agenda, and wouldn't accept he wouldn't be popular any more. Lucy's secrets, as well as 'secrets' that weren't true were all fair game. Depressed, mostly abandoned, and having little sympathy at home (her parents cared nothing about her suspension other than their annoyance at having to go to a meeting in the middle of the day) she began seeking attention the old fashion way. She wore short skirts, diving necklines and got a tattoo on her lower back. She was still smart, but she hated herself more and more. One day, senior year, she tried to make a move on Chad; initially because he was just the person in her way at that moment. Chad of course denied her, but she kept at it. Chad got a little too upset and yelled, and she broke down in the hallway. She screamed that it had been his fault and that she could still be a cheerleader if he hadn't gotten together with 'that bitch'. She knew all too well that was a lie; she realized early on it was her own fault. Chad gave in a bit and, not responding with bitterness, hugged her back. In Lucy's mind, she couldn't remember the last time someone held her with no objective other than to make her happy. She frankly wasn't sure she'd ever had. Maddie saw the wrong moment of this, but that is another story. Chad encouraged Lucy to join the manga club, which she did. For the first week she was certainly bitter, and tried to troll the meeting; especially Maddie. But, between their knowledge of how Chad wasn't what they had expected, how Chad insisted everyone give her a chance, and with the courage Ms. Riley had given the club members (who, for the most part, all still dealt with a large amount of teasing), no one gave in. When they told her that she was welcome to come again, she once again felt oddly accepted. She took home a copy of Fruits Basket and engrossed herself in it. The next week she came back. She didn't much care for the subject still, but she had perspective now. She stumbled upon her ability to be a good snark, a roaster and just plain funny. She also stumbled on an ability to spot tropes in stories and found herself enjoying hating the material. And the other members enjoyed it too. In an odd twist of fate, she hit it off with Black Raven. Very well. Together they... 'discovered' that Lucy was a lesbian, and Blackie being proudly bi they dated for a short time. It didn't last too long, but they ended up being friends long after high school. Through college she found her calling as a public speaker and a protester. She did a bit of stand up comedy, and while that never got big, her blog, podcast and YouTube seminars under the title 'Life's Funny That Way' were a big hit.

Billy, as already mentioned, couldn't handle not being popular. He used everything he had on anyone to climb back up the ladder. When that wasn't enough, he dove head first into hosting massive parties. These parties had lots of booze and a lot of illegal drugs. He started to abuse the substances which he had such easy access to. After a while, he didn't have the money for it, so he started selling. A few weeks before graduation he was caught trying to sell meth to an 8th grader under the bleachers of the middle school. He had well beyond the recreational use on him, but when he fought the school officer who started asking questions, it became clear he wasn't avoiding jail time. His dad used quite a bit of money to keep his sentence to 365 days; the limit before it turned into a prison sentence. While there he managed to just barely get his GED. After leaving, having only the option of community college or manual labour, he lived in a trailer park, working on an assembly line. He never forgave Chad. In fact, no matter what happened, he never once admitted that he'd been wrong about anything.


End file.
